Dynamic Network Models Reveal Personalized Patterns of Well-Being in Young Adults’ Daily Lives

Despite increased focus on well-being in the psychological sciences in recent years, cross-sectional and group-level methods fall short of capturing the dynamics of individual people’s well-being in daily life. Such an investigation is especially important for young adults who are in a developmental phase in which they are more likely to experience fluctuations in their daily lives. We used ecological momentary assessment over one week in two samples of first-year college students (Sample 1, N = 103, assessments = 2,535; Sample 2, N = 76, assessments = 1,796) and a dynamic network approach (Dynamic Exploratory Graph Analysis). This approach estimates, within each person, how well-being elements fluctuate across days and co-vary with one another, recovering both their differentiation (exclusivity) and their interdependence (connectivity). In this approach, elements of well-being—measured via the PERMA framework—are modeled as a dynamic network to address the following research questions: (1) How do elements of well-being in young adults’ daily life form a dynamic network? (2) Does the structure of well-being hold across all young adults, or is there heterogeneity? (3) Is there synchrony among well-being elements, and do they drive a person’s well-being network? Findings suggest that while group-level dynamic well-being networks align with theoretical models, each person’s individual experiences vary significantly, with each person demonstrating unique well-being network structures and synchronous elements. These findings underscore the importance of considering individual variability in well-being, highlighting the necessity for personalized approaches to understand and promote well-being among young adults.